The real deal

EU schemes to protect fine regional foods from cheap copycat products are gaining more ground in Britain. Tom Bruce-Gardyne looks at what protected-name status means—for both producers and consumers

We’re trying to reinvigorate people’s interest in Cheddar beyond that yellow stuff you have in the fridge,” explains Dom Lane, an account director for the Devon-based PR and advertising agency Bray Leino. This sounds a tough challenge for such an everyday commodity. But Lane is not really bothered about Cheddar as such. What concerns him is a relatively new sub-species called West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, which won protected designation of origin status, or PDO, in 1999 (see box below).

“Why did we apply for a PDO? Because it protects the craft that goes into production and because it helps protect the livelihoods of the producers,” Lane explains. “It was to distinguish the real thing from a ubiquitous product.” Using the slogan “handmade on the farm”, they have broken into the High Street through Waitrose.

One wonders what Joseph Harding would have made of it all. Cheddar’s founding father was born in 1805 and, rather than jealously protect his creation, he happily divulged the secret to cheese-makers from Scotland to the US. “Cheese is not made in the field, nor in the byre, nor even in the cow,” Harding was wont to declare. “It is made in the dairy.” Then again, he might not have been so free with the recipe if he’d known what an industrialised product it would become.  

The West Country Farmhouse Cheddar makers are part of a growing number of British consortia passionate about the authenticity of their products and keen to fight off associations with cheaper rivals. At first, Defra did little more than float the idea of protected-name status on its website, and take-up was pitifully low. But now it has recruited Irene Bocchetta to the cause and things are beginning to change.

Bocchetta, who works for the public body Food from Britain, began pushing the scheme last year. As of September 2007, there were 36 protected British food products—from Cornish clotted cream to Shetland lamb—and about the same number in the pipeline awaiting approval.

So do Britons—as happy with a curry as they are with fish and chips—really care about their “national” food?“ I think we do care. I just don’t think we’ve had a way of showing it,” Bocchetta says. But some argue appellations are an anachronism in our increasingly globalised world. When the Finns and the Poles lobbied Brussels to regain some control of their national drink—vodka—by limiting the ingredients to potatoes and grain, they were told to get real.

Vodka is a global spirit that can be made from virtually anything. Bocchetta takes the point, but says, “Think back to what drove the EU to draft the legislation in 1993. They realised we need to draw attention to local and rural economies, to skills that will be lost if we don’t protect how something is made.”

Clearly, though, some things have passed the point of no return. No-one is seriously hoping to repatriate Yorkshire pudding to Yorkshire or London Gin to the capital. Much of the latter is now distilled near Kirkcaldy in Fife.

For those still in with a chance, the path to protected status can be long. The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association applied for protected geographic indication (PGI) in 1998. “We were told, ‘Don’t worry, it’s a two-year process’,” says chairman Matthew O’Callaghan. Almost a decade later, he’s still waiting—though the end is now in sight.

While some PGI foods such as Yorkshire forced rhubarb and Whitstable oysters are more likely to be seen at the farmer’s market, the Melton Mowbray pork pie is big commercially. At stake was a growing £50m market, of which the Leeds-based food processing giant, Northern Foods, had a significant share. As it made its pies outside the area, PGI status would have prevented the company from using the Melton Mowbray name. It fought all the way to the High Court to stop the protection campaign—and lost. The case won unprecedented publicity for the pie but cost Northern Foods a six-figure sum. The company has since sold off its pie division to Pork Farms, which may soon start producing Melton Mowbray pies within the designated region.  

Bocchetta sees the case as a victory for regional food. “Retailers won’t be able to say, as they have in the past, ‘We want the meat to be bright pink and we want them to be this size’. Armed with their PGI, the pie-makers will be able to say, ‘If you want to sell our pies, they’ll look like this. They might not sit neatly on your shelves, but tough!’”  
 
O’Callaghan wants the little blue and yellow PDO or PGI stickers handed out by Brussels to become like Michelin stars, with competition between regions over who can win the most. The PGI for the pie is expected by the end of this year, at which point a major consumer campaign is planned.

This is just what the scheme needs to boost recognition among the public. When Food from Britain commissioned a survey last year, the results were not good. Less than 10 per cent of those questioned could recognise the logo. But Bocchetta remains confident that the situation will improve as more products carry the stickers, and as consumers start to spot them abroad. Success will inevitably lie with the big chains. But in practice, just how keen are they to support something that devolves power to their suppliers?

When the Arbroath Smokie (see below) was trying to protect itself, the Scottish chef Nick Nairn spoke of how “The big processors and supermarkets have no desire to be forced into a corner where they have to use traditional methods from a designated region.” Three years on, and the chains have become more receptive. “It appears they’re responding to the rise of the ‘locavore’,” says Dom Lane, referring to those shoppers who source locally and fret about food miles. “There’s now a willingness to meet small producers halfway.”      
Giving food a regional identity can have far-reaching benefits. The spread of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic was partly blamed on the distances travelled by livestock. It was revealed that English lambs would regularly “bed and breakfast” in Wales to earn a premium price. Today, Welsh Lamb has a PGI and is now being exported as such.
“British foods need to be protected and celebrated,” says Bocchetta. “The quality of our farming husbandry is among the highest in Europe. We’ve got rare breeds, we grow wonderful fruits—there’s so much to work on.”

The rewards are certainly there. Champagne, the ultimate PGI, is worth around £3bn a year. Then again, it has been protected for over a century.

Protect and survive

The protected designation of origin (PDO) scheme, together with its close cousin the protected geographic indication (PGI) scheme, was introduced by the EU in 1993. PDOs and PGIs aim to give regional foods the same kind of protection as wine appellations.

For example, to gain a PDO for West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, the 13 dairies involved had to form an association and agree the production process they would abide by. They then had to convince the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that it was a cause worth backing all the way to Brussels, that their region had the traditional skills in artisan cheese-making, and that milk from grass-fed West Country cows was special.

How the Smokie got hot

The port of Arbroath on the east coast of Scotland has been smoking haddock with its own unique cure since the late 19th century. The fish are tied in pairs and smoked in a small brick oven over the embers of a hardwood fire.

Only fish prepared within five miles of the town clock and according to these traditional methods can go by the name “Arbroath Smokies”, thanks to the PGI scheme.

Bob Spink, who runs the port’s largest producer, started a campaign to protect the Smokie after a supermarket turned him down. Told the shop didn’t need another supplier of Arbroath Smokies, he went to the fish counter to see what was on offer. Processed in large electric kilns in Grimsby, the supermarket’s Smokies were, he says, “not even a poor imitation” of the real thing.

Spink won protected status for the fish in 2004, after a two-year process. In doing so, he has made the future of a cottage industry more secure.

Thanks to strict North Sea quotas on haddock, Arbroath Smokies may never be big business, but at least they now have the recognition they deserve.